"English Goes Underground"

Episode 2

The author of the article describes how class also affected the use of English, especially in the
time of William the Conqueror and for approximately 300 years after his reign; during this
period, only the French language and Latin were used in state affairs and by the aristocracy,
while English remained in use with the lower peasant classes.

An important point is that the French vocabulary of power forced its way into the English
language Crown" and "court" were both French words.   So were "castle" and "tower", and the
barons who built them.

Anglo-Saxon kings had governed  using the Old English language.  Normans used French and
Latin. 
English had become the third language in its own country.   It would take over 300 years to
emerge from the shadows.

Since the conquest, English in varying dialects  had remained the language spoken by 90% of
the population from the south coast to the uplands of southern Scotland,  just a few miles north
of here.  Even further north in Scotland and west in Wales,  the culture and language were still
Celtic.

Old English had continued to develop and change,  partly as a result of contact with the
language of the Danes, particularly here in the north. 

The grammar was becoming simpler.  More plurals were being formed by adding an "s"   for
example, the Old English plural of "name",  became "names", which would become our
"names".

Prepositions were performing more of the functions  of the old word endings,  and word order
was becoming more fixed. While English remained in use with the lower peasant classes.

Author describes a writer of the newly emerged England

Chaucer told us what we were, In The Canterbury Tales in particular he describes characters
we can still see around us today and he writes of them in the new English and Middle English.
At the end of the story the author draws the conclusion that in the Chaucer's day area around
the cathedral and the nearby streets would have been thronged with piligrims from all over the
country. Chaucer himself gives us literatures first fully notherner who speaks with flat vowels.
He says "him" from "home", "now" from "no", "gong" from "gone", all pronunciation quite
understandable.